Ex-Kings teacher, officials accused in abuse lawsuit

DEERFIELD TWP. – A former Kings Schools special education teacher is the target of a federal lawsuit filed Monday accusing her of physically and emotionally abusing five mentally and physically challenged students.

Amanda Kitcho taught special needs students at Columbia Elementary in the Warren County district until she negotiated a resignation agreement with district officials in March 2012.

The parents of five of her former students have sued both Kitcho and Kings school officials in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati contending their children suffered physical and emotional abuse.

Kitcho made one girl, who moves with the aid of a walker, “crawl like an animal” to the bathroom while screaming at her, restraining her with duct tape and secluding her in a bathroom and a janitorial area, the lawsuit states.

Kitcho also “intentionally provoked and startled students into escalating behaviors … walled students behind dividers in the classroom, took food from the children’s lunches and deprived them of snacks,” according to the suit.

Kings officials knew of the mistreatment but didn’t report it to law enforcement or inform parents that the district was investigating Kitcho, the suit states.

“Children with significant disabilities are the most vulnerable and invisible of our fellow citizens. They love and hurt just like anybody else. Their parents and grandparent guardians hope and suffer just like all parents and guardians,” said the parents’ attorney, Rick Ganulin. “Each child suffered directly and also suffered by having to observe the abuse of other children.”

Ganulin said one child suffers from glycosylation, which shortens her life and affects her mental and physical abilities.

Her mother and father, Amy and Michael McClellan, who now live with their daughter, Hannah, in Idaho Falls, Idaho, said they remain “furious” about how then 11-year-old Hannah was allegedly treated by Kitcho during the 2010-11 school year.

NEWSLETTERS

Get the News Alerts newsletter delivered to your inbox

We're sorry, but something went wrong

Be the first to be informed of important news as it happens in Greater Cincinnati.

“We gave them a bubbly, happy little girl, and what we got back at the end of the school year was nothing like that. We got a totally different child because she had such a fear of going to school,” Hannah’s mother said in an interview.

“I was personally lied to by Amanda Kitcho, and I was lied to by the district.”

According to the lawsuit, a teacher’s aide, frustrated by the initial lack of action by Kings officials to investigate Kitcho, resigned, and a school librarian reported her concerns to the Warren County Sheriff’s Office and the county prosecutor. No charges were filed.

According to sheriff’s documents obtained by The Enquirer, a detective who conducted the sheriff’s office investigation noted in his report that, although Kitcho’s alleged actions did not merit criminal charges, “it was quite obvious that (she) was extremely mean spirited, verbally abusive and cruel toward these handicapped students and has no business teaching handicapped children.”

Kitcho did not respond to a message left at her home Monday.

Kings Superintendent Valerie Browning said Monday “at this time the district nor our attorneys have seen this lawsuit. When we do we will be reviewing it with our board of education.”

The Kitcho case made headlines last year when Kings settled a public records lawsuit filed by the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes by agreeing to pay $11,000 in court costs and releasing the depositions of teacher aides and school administrators gathered as part of the district’s investigation of Kitcho.

The first complaint about Kitcho came to Kings officials in October 2011 and by January 2012 the teacher was placed on paid leave. Kitcho, under a negotiated resignation agreement with the district in March 2012, received a letter of recommendation that included an excerpt from the teacher’s previously favorable job reviews.

Kings officials said they reported their investigation of Kitcho to the Ohio Department of Education as required by Ohio law. ?